


one day i'll fly away

by Combeferre



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Airplanes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, Travel, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2359133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Combeferre/pseuds/Combeferre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac is coming home from Nepal and gets a lot more than he bargained for on the flight back.</p><p>Namely, a giraffe and a novelist sitting either side of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one day i'll fly away

Courfeyrac was absolutely exhausted. The day before, he’d spent nearly eight hours on the bus from Pokhara to Kathmandu, being rattled around like a bean in a tin while rain dripped through a hole in roof and landed in mournful _plops_ on his head, meaning that he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. His hotel had been of Nepalese standard (two-inch thick mattress, unflushable toilet and traffic outside the window) and the dinner that he’d shelled out 400 rupees for had given him a dodgy stomach. And now there was a ten-hour flight home to look forward to. _Fantastic._

He was now sat in the waiting room at Kathmandu airport, the fan above him idly stirring the air as the announcer shouted a stream of foreign words through the tannoy. His breakfast had deprived him of his last 500 rupees, and he was hungrily anticipating the plane food. _Which would be curry. It was always curry._ His stomach groaned a little in protest, but he ignored it – surely, having been in Nepal for eight weeks, it was acclimatized by now.

His flight was called and he went wandering up to the gate, ignoring the monkeys that could be seen swinging outside the windows. The heat, at ten in the morning, was already becoming oppressive, and, despite the amazing time he’d had being a volunteer teacher, he was ready to go home to queueing and sanitation and _no cows on the goddamn street._

After another two frisks, he was sent up the stairs and onto the plane, which was smaller than the one he’d flown out on but still looked comfortable. Finding his seat, he threw the larger of his two bags into the overhead baggage hold, keeping his smaller rucksack that contained his passport, money and book in his lap as he sat down, balancing the red cushion and faux-tartan blanket that the attendant gave him on his knees as he made himself comfortable. He’d bagged himself the middle seat, for no other reason than it was positioned between the window and the passage to the toilet, so he got the best of both worlds.

That was how he always travelled; he wanted to see everything.

The flight was slowly filling up around him, and he watched the people getting on with a sort of lazy interest. It was made up of roughly equal proportions of Nepali citizens and westerners, all of whom were travelling to England for their own reasons. There was an elderly Nepali man in traditional dress who was already happily listening to the in-flight entertainment with a blissful smile on his face; a little gaggle of students who looked like they were also coming back from volunteer work with prayer scarves wrapped around their necks; an older Western woman with a travel guide still clutched in her hand as a younger man – her son? – put their bags in the overhead hold.

And then there was a blonde girl, her hair tied up with a green Alice band, wandering down the aisle towards him, followed by a huge, gangly youth who was carrying an assortment of rucksacks and ethnic bags with a massive, floppy sunhat on that just barely hid his terribly sunburnt face. Courfeyrac watched with amusement as the youth seemed to trip over his own feet and almost fall into the lap of the Western woman, who gave him a disapproving glare as he righted himself.

The girl eventually reached Courfeyrac’s seat, looked at the seat number above him, and looked back down to ask apologetically, “Can I get past you?”

“Sure.” Courfeyrac stood up and climbed onto his seat, crouching a little, to let the girl pass him to sit by the window. To his right, the boy had opened the hold and was struggling to force all ten bags that the pair had between them into the space that was left. Courfeyrac sprang up and, between them, they managed to push everything in and slam the hold door shut.

“As soon as we open that up again, somebody’s going to get concussed,” Courfeyrac mused as he took his seat again. “Just a thought.”

The youth flushed. “I know. We bought far too many souvenirs, that’s the problem.”

“No such thing!” the girl cut in from Courfeyrac’s other side as she buckled her seatbelt. “Plus, you’re the one who wanted to buy presents for _everyone.”_ She side-eyed Courfeyrac, who was evidently looking confused. “Sorry. I’m Cosette.” Beaming, she stuck out her hand. “And that absolute peanut over there is my boyfriend, Marius.”

Courfeyrac couldn’t help letting out a little “oh” of disappointment when he heard they were both taken, but took Cosette’s hand. “I’m Courfeyrac. So what have you guys been doing? Sightseeing? Volunteering?”

“Mostly trekking,” Cosette replied, beginning to dig around in her bag. “We walked up to Annapurna Base Camp, Marius got fifteen leeches on his head in one day and it rained solidly. But we’ve had a good two weeks to wander around and look at temples, so we’ve done that as well.”

“Fifteen leeches?” Courfeyrac asked incredulously, turning to look at Marius, who was nodding sadly. “Fuck, that’s impressive.”

“What were you doing?” Cosette asked, finally retrieving a pair of reading glasses from her bag and putting them on.

“Volunteering. Teaching, mostly. It’s been fantastic – I would say more but I’ve not properly slept for two days and I feel like I’m going to collapse.” Courfeyrac briefly closed his eyes before realising that he actually wanted to carry on talking to these people. They intrigued him. Turning to Marius again, he asked, “So whereabouts are you guys from?”

One turbulent take off, two hours and a terrible breakfast ( _who knew that curry omelettes existed?)_ later, the three were laughing like old friends. Courfeyrac and Marius were sharing a blanket while Cosette read to them from the book she’d bought with her.

“This is amazing!” Courfeyrac exclaimed when she paused for breath. “Who wrote it?”

Cosette started to blush. No, actually, _started_ to blush would be less accurate than saying she _exploded into a blush._ Her entire face turned red in a matter of seconds. “I actually did. It’s my first published book and I have another contract signed with HarperCollins.”

Courfeyrac felt his jaw literally drop. “Holy – you wrote _that?”_ The older woman down the aisle turned around and gave him a disapproving glare, but he was too amazed to care. “Cosette, that’s brilliant!”

“Thank you.” Her face was now not so much red as beetroot. “Okay, time for some new entertainment. We are all going to watch Moulin Rouge! _perfectly in sync._ Let the challenge begin.”

After roughly seven false starts, the three finally managed to get their screens into synchronicity, but Courfeyrac only lasted fifteen minutes before his eyelids started to droop, and, before he knew it, he was asleep.

When he awoke, the plane was dark and Cosette’s reading light was on. Marius was absolutely fixated on _Shaun of the Dead._ Yawning, Courfeyrac shuffled his legs around and poked Cosette. “Hey. What time is it?”

“It’s nearly six, UK time. We’re landing in about two hours time.” Cosette grinned. “Man, you sleep like the dead.”

“I do not!” Courfeyrac complained, sticking his lower lip out. “Have you been reading all this time?”

“I have a long attention span,” Cosette offered. “And besides, it’s not like there’s anything else to do.”

Courfeyrac suddenly felt happier than he had done in a long time for no particular reason he could discern. “No. There’s not.”

 

**oo**

They were somehow separated at the airport before Courfeyrac could even ask for their last names. In a blur of queues and politeness and immigration offices, even Marius’ sunhat was lost in the crowd, and Courfeyrac was left alone to pick up his baggage (a single rucksack roughly the same size as him) and wander outside to wait for the National Express bus up to Birmingham.

When he got home to the small flat he shared with Enjolras, his best friend from university, he wasn’t surprised to find that Enjolras wasn’t in. No doubt he was out arguing some fine point in the stars with Grantaire. Putting the kettle on, he first did everything necessary – re-organising the fridge magnets to read _I’M BACK,_ putting all the kitchen knives in the proper holes (Enjolras always just forced them into any hole going spare in the block and it drove Courfeyrac mad) and dumping all his dirty washing in the machine and setting it to 60 degrees. When he’d had a cup of tea, he stumbled through to his room, fell onto the bed and dropped off straight away.

He didn’t dream at all.

When he awoke, the kettle was boiling and Enjolras could be heard having a loud conversation on the phone. Smiling against his pillow, Courfeyrac savoured the feeling of normality for a few moments before waking up fully, sliding out of bed and wandering into the kitchen, where he sat down at the table and opened up his laptop. Enjolras turned around and jumped about three feet in the air.

“ _Jesus,_ Courfeyrac!” he yelled as the mug of tea he was holding slopped everywhere. “Give me a bit of warning next time!”

“And a very Merry Christmas to you too,” Courfeyrac replied, grinning. “How are you?”

“I’m – I’m okay, yeah, good.” Enjolras ran a hand through his hair. “But – god! How are you? You’ve been in Nepal for six weeks, you peanut!”

Courfeyrac felt an uncomfortable swoop in his stomach at the name but talked all the same. “Well, the level of poverty out there is outstanding, but everyone is happy with what they have. There are thousands of debased –“

“Courfeyrac,” Enjolras said gently, sitting down opposite him. “I don’t want to know about the Nepalese. I want to know about _you.”_

And it all spilled out without Courfeyrac even needing to check it. How he had had kids swarming all over him on his first afternoon, how his smartphone was filled with thousands of photos of his students grinning and gurning and holding balloons, how he’d walked up Poon Hill (a two day trek) and seen the sun rise over the Annapurna ridge, how his guest house had housed the strangest group of people he’d ever encountered, including the number one kayaker in the country and a civil servant from Argentina, how he missed it and yet he was so glad to be home.

Enjolras eventually left to go to work, with promises that he’d be back soon, and Courfeyrac was left to check his social networking sites. He was inundated with tweets about the last article he’d written before he’d left, and with emails about future interviews. When he finally got round to checking Facebook, there were roughly fifty notifications for him to check, but, right at the top of the list was one from his friend Éponine – she’d shared a photo and tagged him in it.

“ ** _Courfeyrac, is this you? ;)”_**

Figuring it was one of those memes, Courfeyrac clicked on the picture and almost spat out his mouthful of tea when it was revealed.

It was a selfie of him sleeping on the plane with Marius on his left and Cosette on his right, both grinning like idiots with their heads on his shoulder. The caption read, “ ** _please share this and help us find Courfeyrac. He’s a loveable midlander who just came back from Nepal and we’d really like to take him on a date.”_**

And there was a phone number.

Swallowing down all his apprehension, Courfeyrac pulled his phone towards him and, without hesitation, dialled.

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted on tumblr by mariuswhatswrongtoday! feel free to send me prompts and ideas at www.combeferre.tumblr.com


End file.
